


As We Understand

by JudeAraya



Category: Glee
Genre: First Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:53:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JudeAraya/pseuds/JudeAraya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt doesn't want Blaine to get better for himself, he needs Blaine to get better for Blaine. The story of their journey through first love, of commitment and perseverance, and the fight to keep each other even through the hardest tests to their relationship.</p><p>Warning for discussion of alcohol abuse and description of anxiety attacks.</p><p>Please do not be afraid to message me if you have any concerns about the content of the fic-- although it does discuss alcohol abuse issues, they aren't quite so severe as the art might lead you to believe!</p>
            </blockquote>





	As We Understand

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by ['lokicorey's](http://lokicorey.tumblr.com) [beautiful art](http://lokicorey.tumblr.com/post/58290228209) for the Klaine Reversebang. 
> 
> Thanks to [Wowbright](http://wowbright.tumblr.com) for answering my questions, to [dyrnekeeper](http://dyrnekeeper.tumblr.com) for being an amazing cheerleader, sounding board, and task mistress -- seriously, without her, this story would never have happened. And so many thanks to [iconicklaine](http://iconicklaine.tumblr.com) for opening her life and experiences to me, for pinch hit beta, and for being an amazing beta, with the patience of Job.
> 
> Most of all, thank you to lokicorey for her beautiful and moving art.

He hears the flurry of knocks first, then a fumbling that he knows is Blaine’s attempt to open the door. The apartment is dark, only the gritty lights filtering in from the night through their windows.

 

The rescued dentist chair he’s been sitting in still feels cold, even though he’d parked himself there over 30 minutes ago when Blaine had sent him two almost unreadable texts and one slurred voicemail.

 

Everything feels cold; he pulls the soft cotton of his sweater tighter around his middle before unlocking the door and sliding it open. There’s no way to do it quietly, he can only hope he doesn’t wake Santana and Rachel up. This is going to be hard enough as is, adding their presence, when he knows their opinions will only worsen it.

 

“Blaine.”

 

“Baby!” Blaine trips, steadies himself on the door, then burrows in Kurt’s arms, too-warm face tucked into the curve of his neck. For a moment, he just lets himself hold, cups the back of Blaine’s head; he’s a little sweaty and through the smell of beer, just Blaine, just his compact body that shapes to fit his perfectly.

 

“Mmmm, smell ‘mazing,” Blaine says, kissing his neck, sloppy hands curling up his body.

 

 

“No.” Kurt holds Blaine lightly by the shoulders, keeping a distance between them. “Blaine, you’re drunk.”

 

Blaine sways slightly, eyes narrowed, and says, “C’mon Kurt.” He shakes it off, and Kurt’s hands, visibly annoyed, and when Kurt steps back and away, it’s with his arms curled protectively around his tightening stomach and his back almost painfully drawn straight. He never really knows who Blaine might be like this – sometimes angry, sometimes sad, occasionally flirtatious and inviting and happy.

 

“Blaine… you called when you were already coming over. Woke me up actually.”

 

“You don’ wanna see me?” Blaine’s voice goes up a bit.

 

“Shhh…” Kurt warns, motioning to the couch “Please don’t wake Santana and Rachel up.”

 

“Ku-urt.” Blaine sits, pulls him down with too strong hands. “Whoops! Din’… didn’t mean to…”

 

Kurt untangles himself.  “I want you to sleep here. Too late to go home.”

 

“On…” Blaine mumbles, already tipping his head down. “On th’ couch? But… you...”

 

Kurt kisses Blaine’s damp forehead, feels his heart curl close and painful inside, “I love you,” he whispers, too low for Blaine to hear, words that hurt on their way out, and wonders if it’s the last time.

 

~*~

 

Blaine takes time waking up, going through the process of surfacing and sinking, each time feeling more and more shitty. He manages to avoid the true suffering he’s more than familiar with until the clatter of kitchen utensils and a muffled curse lift him too heavily to be ignored.

 

“Hey.”

 

At the sound of Kurt’s soft voice, he blinks dry and sticky eyes. He’s fallen asleep with his contacts in again. And, he notes, on the couch.

 

“Wha—”

 

“I made you some eggs and hashbrowns,” Kurt interrupts. “I know they make you feel better when you’re hungover.”

 

Guilt rises with bile in his stomach. He manages to swallow only one of those down. Kurt’s not looking at him; he’s used to this, feeling Kurt’s disappointment sitting all over his skin. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it makes everything prickle, resentment and defensiveness and annoyance because _I’m a big boy Kurt_ and _, god, you’re not my mom._

 

 

Only he’s not feeling anything like that right now.

 

“I don’t think I can…” he says, looking at the food.

 

“Please.” Kurt looks up just then, eyes wide and aching. “You’ll feel better.”

 

“Will I?”

 

Kurt stands from where he’s been sitting on the table by the couch, and when his fingers brush Blaine’s cheek, they’re shaking.

 

~*~

 

Kurt showers while Blaine eats, forcing as much down as possible. He drinks copious amounts of water – he always feels his worst when he drinks beer. Enough so that he wonders why he even bothers.

 

He showers when Kurt emerges dressed and fresh faced, towels and extra clothes stacked in hand for him already. Blaine tries not to throw up in the shower. Anxiety crushes him, sits against his chest and pumps his heart so hard it makes it hard to breathe. He’s not sure which is worse, that or his hangover.

 

~*~

 

“Kurt, I’m so sorry.” Blaine sits next to Kurt on the sofa.

 

“You’re always sorry Blaine.” Kurt traces the white plaid lines of a throw pillow.

Blaine pushes down irritation and worry.

 

“Could you look at me please?” he asks. “It’s not like—”

 

“I’m going home,” Kurt interrupts. Blaine shakes his head, wonders if he heard that right.

 

“What do you mean? Like, forever? Are you leaving school? I don’t understand.”

 

“For the holiday break. I need space and I need to think because... I don’t think I can do this anymore.” Blaine’s ears seem to pop with a whoosh that rushes through, makes him dizzy and struggle to breathe. “Blaine...I wanted this to work so much, but I can’t like this.”

 

“Wanted?” he manages softly. His eyes burn with the heat of impending tears. He’s always though himself an ugly crier, never wanting to do it in front of people. He hates the way they make his nose red and eyes swollen, how vulnerable and exposed it has always left him. He can barely speak through the crackling of his voice.

 “Are you breaking up with me?”

“I don’t know.” Kurt is crying too now, eyes down on his hands which are still kneading the pillow on his lap. “I have to think. I don’t want to give you ultimatums.”

 

Kurt finally looks up and even through the tears Blaine can see his resolve.

 

“But this _is_ one isn’t it? It’s just partying Kurt, why does it always have to be such a big deal?” Why isn’t there enough air in here?

 

“Because it’s _not_ just partying. It’s so much more. The way you act when you do it. Every weekend. The things you’ve done—”

 

“But—” he interrupts, gasping a bit, ears buzzing.

 

“Hey, hey… Blaine,” Kurt sooths. Finally, he touches him, taking his hand. “Breathe. Follow my voice, breathe in, count with me.” He counts off slowly and Blaine tries, keeping his eyes on Kurt’s and trying to slow the breathing that has ratcheted up to near hyperventilation. “This isn’t an ultimatum from me. I want you to get help for _you_. I’m not leaving to make that happen, I’m leaving because this is making me so unhappy and I don’t know how to make that work with how much I care for the person you are when you aren’t drinking.”

 

“I think,” Blaine says as he stumbles to stand, dizzy and off footed. “I think I need to throw up.”

 

And he does, and for the first time he remembers, Kurt isn’t there to soothe him through it.

 

~*~

 

“You ready to tell me what’s up kiddo?” Burt sits heavily across the table from where Kurt’s been sitting and mulling over a mug of tea.

 

“Would you believe me if I said it was because I missed you guys?”

 

“No.”

 

Kurt shrugs. He says, “It’s a thing.”

 

“ _Kurt_ ,” his dad emphasizes, “You used the emergency credit card to come home with a two-day warning. Come on bud. You know you can talk to me.”

 

“It’s about Blaine. And I don’t want you to judge him when I tell you why. But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.”

 

“Is he hurting you in some way? Has he hurt you?” Burt asks. He crosses his arms on the table and leans forward.

 

“God no!” Kurt forgets sometimes that his father has never met Blaine. “At least... not how you are thinking. It’s more like…”

 

 

He swallows heavily, turns the mug around and around. “More like hurting himself, I guess?”

 

“You guess?”

 

“It’s… he drinks. A lot, but it’s not... I mean, it’s just parties, and mostly weekends. I don’t know if that makes it a problem, but it… I feel like I’m always fighting with him because he’s so...”

 

“So?”

 

“Unpredictable? I never know who he’s going to be when he’s like that. It wasn’t like this so much when we started dating, but I feel like it’s getting out of control, and he doesn’t see it. And I’m scared of where it’s going, and I don’t want – I... I feel like I’m always trying to fix it, and fighting with him to stop, and it’s…”

 

 

Kurt bites his lip, looking out the dark window to their yard. The curtains are the same, the grain of the table familiar when he traces it with a finger. 

 

“You’ve asked him to stop?”

 

“Yes. I came home to think. I don’t want to leave him Dad,” Kurt explains. He watches his father lean back against the chair. “I didn’t want to make it an ultimatum, but I don’t know how to be with him like this. I want him to get some sort of help, but not really for me. For him, because it’s not just the drinking. He has these anxiety attacks – it’s so scary and I don’t know how to help him with that. He’s just... there’s something there that – and, he… I mean, it’s not my fight.” Kurt states baldly, arms crossed tight around his torso.

 

“Blaine isn’t, or his problems?” His father levels him a frank look and Kurt has to look away, feeling his eyes sting.

 

“Do you think I did the wrong thing?” Kurt sniffles. “Leaving?”

 

“No,” Burt replies. He takes Kurt’s hand and squeezes, “You did what was best for you. Whatever you decide, I want you to be sure you’re fighting for a life that makes you happy and fulfilled.”

 

~*~

 

He lies in bed that night, eyes closed and too dry, thinking over his father’s words. Trying to separate Blaine and the love he has for him, and Blaine’s problems. Separating the love he has for Blaine from the pain of watching him hurt himself and the helpless need he has to help him. It’s an awful feeling, when Blaine drinks, or gets so worked up he can’t breath, can’t slow himself down to think calmly – sometimes Kurt feels like he’s drowning alongside him, powerless and confused.

 

Kurt opens his eyes when he hears the soft chime of a text coming in.

 

_I found a therapist. I’m going in in a few days._

 

Kurt blinks, breathes in slowly.

 

_I promise, Kurt, to work as hard I can._

 

**I want you to be happy Blaine. I hope this works for you.**

 

There’s a long pause in which he closes his eyes and snuggles further under the covers, heart beating so fast.

 

_I miss you._

 

His eyes have been so dry; he’d thought he had no more tears. One drips onto the screen of the phone. He thinks of Blaine, his face and the way his curls droop on his forehead when he sleeps, and the way his eyes warm honey clear when he’s happy.

 

~*~

 

He was at Callbacks with Rachel the first time he met Blaine; a scene he usually didn’t care for – too many egos, too much competition and as the night wore on, always someone getting embarrassingly sloppy. He didn’t mind competition, or attention, but there was always too much there, which was exhausting.

 

New York still felt new to him, and he was still finding his way at school. Following Rachel out was safer than navigating any sort of social scene alone.

 

Rachel was singing with another potential beau. Kurt was surveying the room; a people watcher by nature, he’d always enjoyed assessing other’s clothes and imagining what they might be talking about based on body language and facial expressions.

 

He missed him at first – a smaller boy by the bar, body leaning in and shoulders up. Kurt wondered why he was alone. The lights of the stage flashed red and then blue, highlighting the shine of his hair but obscuring his face. He turned just as they faded and for the first time of many, Kurt saw his face, eyes locked with his, bright with curiosity and then a small smile.

 

“Hi,” Kurt managed breathlessly when the boy came over. Closer, his eyes were the color of melting copper. He was startlingly handsome in a way that recalled gentlemen from older movies, screen actors from a golden age faded in the memories of others. “I’m Kurt.”

 

“I’m Blaine,” he said. And when he held his hand out, it was with confidence and warmth, a squeeze that frissioned electric and hot through Kurt’s whole body.

 

~*~

 

That moment – the sense of recognition even the first time they’d met – is something Kurt won’t ever forget. Doesn’t want to. It’s a memory that hurts a little, right now, but that burns bright in a way he hopes won’t ever be replicated.

 

Kurt squeezes the last of moisture from his eyes, then uses the edge of his sheet to wipe them so he can see the keys of his phone. He takes a breath that seems to wrap too hard around his heart.

 

**I miss you too.**

 

~*~

 

In the waiting room of a strangers office, Blaine closes his eyes and blocks out the sights of the lobby; drab carpeting and mass market artwork of the variety you’d see in any doctors office across the country. It settles a little wrong, a feeling of wrong fit, finding himself in a therapists office. But of the options he’d considered, the least wrong for him

 

“Blaine?”

 

 

He looks up when a well-dressed woman with long black hair and a face that’s wearing her age very well calls his name.

 

 

“I’m Kim. Come on in,” she says.

 

For a moment, when he stands, he feels a lightening, a loosening that whitewashes his vision and he stumbles a bit to the left.

 

“Everything alright?” she asks.

 

“Fine.” He doesn’t meet her eyes.

 

~*~

 

“You seem anxious.”

 

“I am.”

 

 

He knows why he’s here, but right now, all he feels is resentment simmering toward irritation. She takes it in stride, flipping through the packet of papers he’d struggled to fill out on his lap. Finally she looks up.

 

“Blaine, can you tell me in your own words why you’re here?”

 

His lip stings when he bites it. “Because my boyfriend left me.”

 

“Can you tell me why?”

 

And, oh it’s so hard to keep calm; he feels anger rising from some place he can’t identify.

 

“I guess he thinks I’m an alcoholic.”

 

“What do you think?”

 

God her voice, so calm and fucking even and he feels himself starting to freak out.

 

He runs a hand over his slicked back hair – nothing out of place. “I don’t know. I guess it was this or AA.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“I went to the website and nothing... it just didn’t fit. I tried to picture it, being in a room full of strangers. And what would I have to say?” He’d imagined himself baring secrets. Just the thought makes him feel naked and too exposed.  

 

Every image he’d conjured has ramped him more and more into a familiar tangle of anxiety. When he pictured it, a hard plastic chair, some generic table in a white room, his heart had started to pump faster. It would be a room of strangers who wouldn’t know him; his fingers tingling in a familiar fashion; helpless as always, Blaine clenched and unclenched them. He thought of Kurt, and how patient he’d always been with Blaine in his worst moments. His soft hand in his, gentle and even, and how his voice always felt like the perfect guide.

 

Instead of calming him, these memories tumbled over and over in his brain, jumbling and tangling with an increased panic, a surety that he’d loose Kurt because he couldn’t find a way through these moments, couldn’t find solutions that didn’t hurt. Instead of calming, his brain insisted on reiterating a practiced ridiculous feeling speech, _Hello my name is Blaine and I’m an alcoholic who’s still in love with my ex-boyfriend._ Words so wrong, too tight and uneasy.

 

“Blaine?” Kim prompts.

 

He finds himself smiling; that smile that’s some sort of reflex when he feels this out of control, some sort of default wiring in his brain that’s an instinct to hide.

 

 

“He’s going to leave me,” Blaine says, falling into it, words coming faster and faster, building from a quiet murmur to something louder and less controlled. “He’s going to leave me, and god, he’ll find someone perfect, someone who does it right and doesn’t hurt him because I’m such a mess. He’ll find someone else and it won’t be me, and I— I… he’s _the one_. I know it’s dumb and we’re young, and I’m so stupid because I already bought _rings_.”

 

Kim hands him a box of tissues, he pulls several out with jerking hands, balls them tight into his fist. Blaine tries to conjure Kurt’s voice, even commands to breathe, counting the beats in and the beats out until the tightening vise in his chest would loosen, and his heart begins to calm from the frantic pace.

 

“I’ll be that pathetic guy, not even 20 and alone and telling somebody about what it’s like, when I can’t breathe and am so scared. When sometimes the best feeling is when I don’t feel like me.”

 

He stops then, stops to close his eyes. He’s never, never done this, left himself so exposed to a person – not even Kurt.

 

“Blaine,” Kim says, her voice coming dimly through his tears. Her words are so familiar and fit not quite right because they aren’t Kurt’s. “I need you to breathe, okay?”

 

~*~

 

Blaine gets back to his dorm room in a haze. His bed is such welcome refuge, a warm and dark place under his covers. It’s dead quiet in his room, other than the sound of his ragged breathing. He’s limp, feeling quite like he’s been eviscerated. Ashamed of himself, the weakness of a breakdown, cutting himself open in front of a stranger. A kind stranger, someone probably used to that kind of display.

 

But _he’s_ not. He’s _never_.

 

Blaine isn’t sure if he has the strength for this, for opening the box he’s always felt he carries with him, some secret place where he’s stored it all, anger and resentment and anxiety, the secret hurting from his past, his parents, his trauma.

 

It hurts, quite a lot. In the cavern of safety in his bed, he slides his thumb over his phone’s screen to see the display picture – himself and Kurt, smiles wide open. Kurt’s eyes are crinkled with happiness, and he can almost discern the blue of his changeable eyes. They’d both spoken of it, how young they both were, and maybe how they fell so hard much too fast. But it wasn’t a negative, he thought. It was cementing. He knew Kurt was it for him from their first kiss.  

 

This hurts, but when he thinks of Kurt, he feels in his bones that Kurt means so much more to him, that this pain has to be worth it in the end, because the thought of losing Kurt hurts so much more.

 

~*~

 

After a first date filled with slightly awkward moments, and breathless seconds of awe – because Kurt was so beautiful, ethereal and unique, all faery pointed ears, adorable upturned nose, and in lucky moments, wide and unselfconscious smile.

 

He took Kurt to a safe dinner – Italian and simple – where low lighting made their conversation and shared looks more intimate. Even the uncertainty of _should I hold his hand? Is that too forward?_ on their way homefelt like something to be treasured.

 

Luckily, he was calmed, if only slightly, by the evidence of Kurt’s nerves as well. He blushed finely when flustered. Blaine had already noticed that that when unsure, he stuttered just a little as well. It was lovely. It was adorable.

 

They shared sidelong glances on the walk back to the subway, and when Kurt’s hand knocked into his for a third time, Blaine breathed out nerves and intertwined their fingers. In the glittering night, Blaine hoped Kurt’s skin might glow, freckle dusted like starscape. Already he wanted to travel the geography of Kurt’s skin, too forward thinking maybe, charting the location freckles over his shoulders and back and arms.

 

They climbed down the stairs to the subway, hands tug awkwardly, and Blaine so far from ready to let go. When Kurt turned to him, goodbye on his lips, Blaine said simply, “I want to walk you to your door.”

 

He’s dreamt of this, all through high school, leaned heavily on a longing for that cliché of romance - a date with a gorgeous boy, the buzz of anticipation in his blood, the mostly chaste first kiss at the end of it all: the simple script of every goodbye at a potential lover’s door at the end of one almost perfect night.

 

“I had a good time,” Kurt said, and swung their hands a little, the yellow light that flooded the dark outside his door shading his eyes green.

 

“Can I kiss you?” Blaine breathed without meaning to.

 

Kurt leaned into him without answering, Blaine rolling a little onto his toes to meet him. Kurt’s free hand cupping the side of his neck gently, thumb on the hinge of his jaw and forefinger in the hollow behind his ear shivered up all through his body, toes to fingers to lips.

 

It wasn’t the first kiss he’d thought it might be, instead something intense, a flash sheered between their lips. Something he wasn’t expecting, the turn from sweetness into fever, lips opening, hungry and intimate. Kurt’s waist solid, toned and fit perfectly for the palm of his hand.

 

“Oh,” Kurt said as he broke away. He gasped, resting his forehead against Blaine’s.

 

“Yeah,” Blaine whispered, then took a little more, lips around the sweet flesh of Kurt’s. He softened then, but still it had been so, so alive. Like his body already knew it, the recall of something familiar and known. They kissed easily. Foolishly, he would think later, how it had tasted like a promise and home.

 

~*~

 

When Kurt’s face comes up on the phone’s screen, he fumbles to answer it so fast he almost drops it on the pavement.

 

“Kurt, hi,” he says. He swings into the alcoved doorway of a building to get out of pedestrian traffic and covers his free ear so he can hear Kurt better.

 

“Hey.”

 

“What… I mean, um—”

 

“I wanted to let you know I’m home. That I got in safely.”

 

It’s been days since they’ve had any communication, and Blaine’s untethered, unsure what he’s meant to say. Because he wants to see Kurt but knows that it’s not for him to ask right now.

 

“Oh, good,” Blaine says inanely, then winces.

 

“It sounds like you’re busy,” Kurt continues, “So I’ll let you go—”

 

“No wait,” Blaine swallows. “Can we talk? Maybe not now, if you aren’t ready... or well, I mean, I have class, so whenever you want, I guess?”

 

There’s a long pause; Blaine scoots out of the way when a woman pushes past him to get to the doors, and unsheltered, a gust of wind winds under his coat. He holds back a shiver and waits.

 

“I think I’d like that. To call,” Kurt replies. It’s unspoken but clear. Kurt doesn’t want to see him. _Baby steps_ , he hears Kim coaching him.

 

“Okay. That sounds good.”

 

“Tonight? I know you don’t have class, but I don’t know what you might be doing—”

 

“I’ll be home,” Blaine assures. He knows what Kurt is thinking – a Thursday free has generally meant that Blaine would go out with friends. And long ago, with Kurt, when he’d still been able to coax him out.

 

“Alright,” Kurt says, soft caution in his voice. “I’ll call you.”

 

Blaine closes the call and then his eyes, holds the phone between two hands against his chest.

 

~*~

 

They’ve past preliminaries, the exchange of polite small talk requisite for all awkward phone calls searching for footing.

 

“Kurt—” Blaine finally interrupts, unable to take the suspense any longer. “Can we talk?”

 

He means plainly, honesty that might lay a foundation for him to navigate by.

 

“Alright. Okay.” Kurt sounds as lost as he feels. He’d begin, but he’s not sure what to say, not when he doesn’t know if Kurt’s gone yet or not.

 

“I’m still figuring this out,” Kurt starts. “I want to be with you, Blaine. I can’t—” He hears the shaking breath Kurt takes. “I can’t imagine _not_ being with you, to be honest.”

 

“I can’t either—”

 

“But,” Kurt interrupts gently. “But I’m scared. For us both. Of making you feel like there are conditions to be met… that you’ll try to meet…“ he corrects. “Only for me.”

 

Blaine’s nails scrape against denim. “I can understand that.”

 

“Are you… just for me?” Kurt’s voice shakes, an inflection that means he’s already been crying.

 

“I don’t want it to be like that. It’s just hard, right now, to figure out what any of it- how to separate me and you and what the things I am feeling – the things I feel – mean.”

 

“Okay,” Kurt repies. He sounds a little lost, which Blaine can’t help but understand. It’s maybe the only thing he _does_ understand.

 

Blaine says, “I don’t want to hurt you. It’s the last thing I want. Wanted.” He bites his lip, nails scratching rhythmically against his leg. There’s a telling silence, then the sounds of their breathing; Kurt’s the staccato of silent tears, and Blaine’s the painful drag he’s learning to tell mean an anxiety attack lurking.

 

 _But you have_.

 

Kurt doesn’t have to say it. Blaine doesn’t need to hear it, to know. And _I love you,_ he knows too, is not enough to fix either of them, no matter how true it is.

 

“I should go.”

 

“Oh.” Blaine gulps in a breath, because it’s not enough but he still wants to say it. “Kurt...I-”

 

“I know Blaine,” Kurt interrupts softly. “I do too.”

 

~*~

 

The first time Kurt remembers thinking Blaine had a problem – the first time he’d felt more than annoyance or mild concern – was also the first time Blaine really hurt him. The worst, he’ll come to know, the absolute worst hurt he’d experience in the year to come.

 

It was the night out after a party, and a stumbling walk toward the dorms – closer than his apartment, and easier to navigate with Blaine’s arm a dead weight around his neck, all incoherent movement and the susurration of slurred words near numbed with shots of rum and beer chasers.

 

The doors gave him trouble, the stairs were a nightmare, and Blaine – sweat and alcohol smelling, too touchy and now louder – nearly intolerable.

 

His roommate wasn’t in, which was also irritating because it meant Kurt would have to stay and watch over Blaine, who tended to be sick in the middle of the night after a binge like this.

 

Kurt wasn’t a fan of sweating: he tolerated it when unavoidable or necessary: dance class or working out in his apartment (when no one was there to see it; he was much too dignified for that). So it didn’t help matters that by the time he got Blaine in bed, shoes off and outer layers peeled away, he was sheened with a light coat of perspiration.

 

“Blaine,” he pushed Blaine’s hair, damp and falling over his forehead, away. “Blaine I need you to drink some water for me.”

 

“Kurt,” Blaine’s eyes slowed open, hazy but earnestly sweet.

 

“If you feel sick honey, I’ve the trashcan here.” _And a towel, and some Advil, some pretzels in case they settle your stomach,_ Kurt listed silently. Resentfully.

 

“Take such—,” Blaine starts, eyes blinked, slow and heavy. Yellow gold, flashing slow like the yellow blinking lights that dotted empty streets back home, where there’d never been much traffic and the dark sky had felt too wide open and big, crushing and lonely.

 

Blaine like this made Kurt feel so lonely.

 

“... such good care of me.”

 

Kurt waited for Blaine to fall asleep, fingers tracing his hair line. Even like this, mad and irritated and swallowing a sort of worry he’d been skirting for a while now, something incandescent and unique persisted in his chest. Something for Blaine alone.

 

“Rest now, okay?”

 

Blaine groped for his hand, rolled to his side with his face pressed against Kurt’s leg. “Love you.”

 

Words almost muffled in the fabric of his pants. But not quite.

 

~*~

 

Kurt hangs up first, finely shaking.

 

He remembers a night almost a year ago now, when Blaine had taken from him a first he’d treasured in fantasy since he’d been a little boy. Two words, slurred unconsciously.

 

Blaine never meant to hurt him, Kurt knew. But worse – so much worse because Kurt loves him so helplessly, in a way that feels hopeless right now – Blaine hurts himself; hurts himself over and over without even realizing it. There’s nothing worse, Kurt knows, than loving someone so much, who cannot love themselves.   


 

~*~

 

“So why therapy?”

 

Blaine heaves a deep breath. One finger traces the edge of the table, over and over.

 

“I looked on the internet; I went to the website for AA. I didn’t know – it had never felt like I really had an alcohol problem.”

 

Kurt bites his lip with the effort of not speaking, shoulders tight and high because this is _not_ a conversation he wants to have. Again. He’s promised himself this. No more swimming against the tide, not when it felt like all it meant was that they’d both drown.

 

“I’m not saying there wasn’t a problem Kurt.”

 

He looks up at the snappish tone. Blaine’s lips are white pressed together. The thought of trying to breach the wall, block after block of tension and resentment and fear and misunderstanding, all of it squatting between them, seems impossible.

 

“Alright,” Kurt says softly. It might be impossible, but he wants to try. “Tell me more?”

 

Blaine’s shoulders relax. “I thought I’d try therapy first. They have all kinds of resources on the AA website, and I didn’t seem to really fit in completely. And…”

 

There’s a long silence, broken by a loud clatter and a muffled “ _...shit_ ” when a server trips over a chair that’s been carelessly left out.

 

Kurt glances back at Blaine and he looks so shrouded in unhappiness. He bumps his foot gently.

 

“I was really scared. I couldn’t— all those people, and talking about... I’ve never really been good at talking about my problems, not even with people I’m supposed to trust.”

 

It sinks into Kurt and he’s suddenly cold, so cold. _Supposed to trust._

 

_~*~_

 

“I hurt you last time we talked,” Blaine states plainly. _The only way out is through,_ Kim had told him. “That wasn’t my intention.”

 

“I know,” Kurt offers softly. He looks gentler than usual, sitting on Blaine’s bed carefully. Wrong. He should be in that bed with him, curled around each other, soft eyes and fingers comforting each other, not this far away. Not with so much heavy air oppressive and impenetrable between them. “It’s not about me. I’m sure we’re all aware that I have an ego. It’s hard sometimes, not to make it about me.”

 

Blaine shrugs. He’s never before thought of Kurt as selfish like he’s implying. More confident, more assertive. Sometimes, maybe, if he’s being honest, Kurt leaves him feeling a little unseen. Bowled over. Intention counts for a lot with him, and he knows Kurt doesn’t ever mean to do it. And now he seems to see it. That’s a step.

 

“Do you want to talk to me now?”

 

_I want you to hold me._

 

Blaine shrugs again. He wants to trust Kurt. To tell him the things he tells Kim, to let him in. There’s a shifting mutability to their interactions, and an underlying uncertainty. Blaine doesn’t know how much he can expose to Kurt, or how vulnerable he can make himself when he never knows if Kurt will be leaving him in the end.

 

“Blaine,” Kurt whispers, almost inaudible. “Will you come sit next to me?”

 

Blaine nods and does, wondering how close he can get. Kurt takes his hand, winds them together in his lap.

 

“We don’t want to hurt each other,” Kurt says with certainty. And he’s right too, because they don’t. _Want_ is nowhere close, not in the pit of his anxieties, to _won’t_. “Do you want to take this part slowly?”

 

He risks a little then, puts his head on Kurt’s shoulder where he’s warm and comfort fragrant, “Yes, please.”

 

~*~

 

“Kim was thinking I might take something for anxiety,” Blaine says, looking up from where he’s been reading over his notes. It’s hard to focus on schoolwork with Kurt so close.

 

“Oh?” There’s surprise in Kurt’s voice.

 

“Do you think...” Blaine shifts until his body is facing Kurt’s, curling his legs under him against the hard floor. He props his chin on the couch cushions and looks up at him. He feels warm, and a little nervous. “Do you think that would make me weak?”

 

“Sweetheart,” Kurt’s replies, face smoothing into something heartbreakingly accessible and lovey. He crawls toward him, cups Blaine’s cheek and slides his thumb around Blaine’s ear. He melts helplessly into the touch, resting his head against Kurt’s knee. “No. Nothing that will help you makes you weak. It makes you amazing.”

 

Kurt’s lips are damp against his forehead and his heart cramps hard, hope a deep thing in his chest. “I think you’re so brave.”

 

~*~

 

“Things feel a bit better, between us,” Blaine says as he lays a palm against the butter soft leather armrest.

 

“That’s good. Better how?”

 

“He’s easier with me. We’re easier. Little touches,” He replies, laughing, “I never realized how much I respond to touch. It’s very calming. Makes me feel important.” _Loved_.

 

“I’m glad. Things that make you feel good are important. I know you’ve been talking to him more about what we do here and what you’re working on. How is that going?”

 

“I don’t know,” he admits. “It’s hard... because I still don’t know what’s really going on. If he’s coming or going, what the...” Blaine drums his fingers against the rounded edge of the arm, legs bouncing a little. “What is it we’ve been talking about here? Boundaries? I know we’ve been talking about mine in a different context, but that’s the only word I can think of. I’m not sure what the boundaries are, with us.”

 

“No that’s good,” she says, smiling at him. “Establishing boundaries is healthy –  not just your own internal gauge, but with other people.”

 

“Yeah.” He considers her quietly. “I think I need to figure that out. For us.”

 

~*~

 

“I think it’s really unfair to start making this about me, when it’s clearly not,” Kurt insists, crossing his arms.

 

“I’m not trying to make it about you,” Blaine explains. Frustration feels sharp, buzzing and aching to be let loose. “I’m just trying to figure out where we are. I don’t want to push you, but I think we need to talk about things between us too.”

 

“So it _is_ about me.”

 

“God, are you listening?” He gives in to it. “It’s about _us_.”

 

 

Blaine stands, pushes the chair away so roughly it starts to tip over and he catches it just in time. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Kurt flinch and draw into himself even more. “You want me to trust you, to share everything I’m doing with you... to prove myself I guess—”

 

“Hey—”

 

But Blaine’s on a roll and he steams over Kurt’s exclamation, pacing in tight lines. “This is really hard for me too Kurt. It’s scary and new and there’s so many things I’m just now starting to figure out, and I want you to be a part of it, but I can’t, not when I’m always scared you’re about to leave if I don’t do it right, give you some sort of perfect, definite evidence that I’ve changed. And it doesn’t work like that.”   


 

He falls silent and listens to that quiet carefully. They’re both breathing hard, and Kurt’s cheeks are deep flushed.

 

“Kurt,” He can’t help imploring, “I lo—”

           

 

“Don’t—” Kurt cuts him off with a sharp gesture. “Just don’t right now.”

 

“God! Kurt—” Blaine’s fingers get stuck in the tangle of gel. “You never let me say it-”

 

“Well, it’s a little hard, when all it does is remind me of the first time you did,” Kurt snaps.

 

Blaine makes a choked noise of deep frustration. “You’re always holding things over me! It’s like nothing’s ever going to be in the past. I just want to know that you’re here with me, that you want to work on these things.”

 

“Are you kidding me with this?” Kurt’s face falls slack with incredulity, then tightens. “This is— you’re the one with the drinking problem! I’m just the one who was always stuck cleaning up after you or figuring out how to take the next step, or how to get through lo— feeling so much and always getting hurt.”  

 

“That’s right,” Blaine spits, lip curing with anger. “For god’s sake, don’t say that you love me. Wouldn’t want to risk that.”

 

“What are you talking about?” Kurt stands, hands flailing in the air with jerky movements. “You… you know I do! I can’t even— how dare you make this about me?”

 

“I’m not—” Blaine begins as he tries to calm the temper swarming through his chest like bees, “I’m not trying to make this about you. I’m trying to figure out who to make this work.” He bites his lip and looks up at Kurt, “Between us. I know I need help. But I can’t… I’m scared that I’ll always have to prove myself to you, and that you’re always going to be punishing me for the things I’ve done.”

 

“I’d never—” Kurt gasps in the flush of tears.

 

“I know you wouldn’t on purpose. But that’s how we’ve been working. Or… I don’t know. I just want to be honest, and say that if you want this to work, we both need to be committed to not doing it the way we were.”

 

“Blaine,” His voice breaks, and it’s almost beseeching. Even though Kurt turns away, Blaine still hears the richness of pain.

 

“I’ve realized the other day, that I tell myself you love me more than you do. That I’ve been scared for a long time now, that you’ll leave. You’ve loved me more than anyone ever has, but -- no one in my life has loved me without conditions, or left.”

 

“Blaine, I do,” Kurt says, turns away, shoulders bunching under the tight grey linen when he wipes tears away. “How can you doubt that?”

 

Blaine closes his eyes and breathes out as softly as he can; there’s a welling ache in his chest. It’s all he can do, to not wonder how he’ll get through this, or how much of this he can stand.

 

 _Sometimes, one day at a time is too big,_ Kim had advised him. _Sometimes, you just have to put yourself on the minute to minute plan. Just focus on getting through the next moment, and then the one after that. Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed with the big picture._  

 

“Listen,” he says, his hand is on the door. His face hurts from the effort of keeping it still. “I’m sorry, I have to go. I just… lets think about this okay? Maybe we can try to talk again when we’ve had some time to think.”

 

~*~

 

When Kurt thinks about the implications of Blaine’s words, it’s hard to keep them from blooming into resentment, hard not to want to call him and list the things, the ways he, perhaps foolishly, let him into his heart. He waits for a few moments after Blaine leaves, staring at the door he’d closed – no dramatic slamming or huffing away – but with care.

 

But it still hurts. His words, and the accusations, and the raw feeling of how _unfair_ this all is. Because he’s not the bad guy here. He does love Blaine. He loves Blaine even though sometimes it hurts. So many times he’s wondered how he’ll ever pull himself back together, if this falls apart.

 

 _I trust him, I trust him, I do_.

 

Inside, he feels an unstable vortex of emotions and chanted defenses. He thinks of all the ways he’s loved Blaine -- how can he not see them? Of all the ways he’s trusted him, moments and gifts that all feel invisible and useless, because apparently Blaine hasn’t seen them at all.

 

It’s dark and close and in his room, barricaded from the world, he can’t help but think of the first time they had sex, and how fully he’d wanted to give himself to Blaine, to give and experience something he’d never had before. It wasn’t as though either of them had come to each other virgins; although in that way, yes. Such a huge moment, so scared he’d been and so naked vulnerable when he’d asked Blaine for it, confessed how much he wanted Blaine inside.

 

And it had been strange, and uncomfortable at first. His body had protested while his heart hammered and hammered and he tried to breathe. But what he remembers more than that, than the fear that his body wasn’t meant for this, is Blaine. Blaine with a sweaty cheek against his, breathless and so solid. _You’re fine,_ he’d whispered out _, I’ve got you_. _Breathe with me_.

 

Kurt had. Had breathed and trusted and when Blaine moved, _tell me if it’s too much, we can stop,_ he’d promised, trying to hold back his own exhalations of pleasure. He’d looked into Blaine’s eyes then and known and known and known so hard how much they loved each other. And it had bloomed then.

 

When Kurt remembers that, those seeds of resentment aren’t any match for the unfurling memory of making love, of his body opening the first time he’d let Blaine in.

 

He also remembers now, with a sinking feeling deep inside, that he’d wanted so badly to say the words, but couldn’t manage, not in the deluge of new sensations and state of complex raw vulnerability, how to push out.

 

He remembers now, how many times he’s held them back. How, the last time he’d said them had been because he was leaving.

 

~*~

 

“Hey Dad.”

 

“Hey bud, what’s going on?” Burt says. There’s noise in the background, sounds of the shop, that are cut off suddenly and Kurt knows his father’s closed the door to the office.

 

“Nothing, just thought I’d call.” Kurt replies.

 

“Kurt.”

 

Kurt closes his eyes. He doesn’t know why he ever even bothers to try to hide things from his father. He’d called to hear his voice; the sound of someone who knows him, loves him – Kurt need that sense of being grounded, rooted to something solid and unchangeable.

 

He remembers Blaine’s words, about never having been loved without conditions. His stomach swoops, hollow and aching, when he thinks of his father, the most dependable person in his own life, and what it might be like, to never have had something like that.

 

“I just needed to hear your voice, I guess.” He manages through the surge of shame.

 

He was supposed to be that person for Blaine. The person to love him no matter what. And he _does_ love him, nothing can ever change that. He just doesn’t know how to be with Blaine. That has nothing to do with love and everything to do with being hurt. With standing there and watching Blaine hurt himself like it’s something acceptable. Something he can turn a blind eye to.

 

“Wanna talk about it? How’re things going with Blaine?”

 

“um,” Kurt squints his eyes closed, “Stop and go?” It’s the only way he can describe it.

“Stop right now, I assume?”

 

 _God_ , Kurt thinks, _how is he always so spot on? Dad x-ray vision_?

 

“We had a fight. I don’t – I think I was too defensive to really hear what he was saying. But it’s so hard- a part of me is so mad sometimes, and it felt like he was trying to make things my fault too. He’s the one with the problem!”

 

“You _think_ you were being too defensive?”

 

“I- uh…thought things through when I got home.” He’s not going to describe that in detail at all.  “I don’t know. I think Blaine might have had some points. He kept talking about boundaries, and I am not really sure what he meant – saying it wasn’t just him that needed them?”

 

“Hmm.” It’s hard to read the inflection of his father’s tone. “Do you want to understand more?”

 

Kurt breathes in, tries to ignore the waves of anxiety washing him cold and hot at the same time. “I want to be with him, Dad.”

 

“Well then,” Burt sighs, “I think you have your answer.

 

~*~

Blaine lets him in with the strangest expression, something Kurt’s never seen and cannot read. He looks comfortable, lounging clothes and glasses on. Comfortable and Kurt wants so much, that comfort too.

 

He stands unsure just inside the door, hoping to read whatever it is that’s hiding in Blaine’s eyes.

 

“Can I—” Kurt swallows. “Can I hug you? Please?”

 

“Yeah?” Blaine says like a question, like it was never not an option. Kurt folds himself into Blaine’s arms, tucking down so he can rest his head on Blaine’s shoulder. He wants to come to him like a child, to curl into his side on the sofa. Loving Blaine is a need inside right now; one for himself. It’s all selfish and wrong and backwards, he realizes.

 

“I wasn’t expecting you so… so soon,” Blaine admits. He leads Kurt to the small couch.

 

“I’m sorry for the way that last conversation went,” Kurt says as evenly as he can. He’s thought a lot about what he wants to say, and how he wants this to go. He doesn’t know that he agrees with everything Blaine had said, but then again, Blaine had really unmasked things Kurt would never have seen on his own. Shown him how they both seem to be working against what they both want. He wants to be sure that he starts this conversation on level ground, without blaming or taking a defensive posture.

 

Setting boundaries, he’d read in his limited research, can be like putting up a fence between them. Kurt is still not sure he understands how to do that, not without feeling like he’ll be abandoning Blaine when he’ll need Kurt most. Now that he’s really realized the depth of loneliness Blaine must feel, how awful it must be to navigate a word without a constant and unchangeable source of support and love, Kurt wants more than ever to give it to him.

 

But Blaine is right, they need boundaries.

 

Determining what he’s determined is unacceptable behavior and what the consequences will be – well he’s not sure he’s really gotten that, and he’s afraid of doing it wrong. Not fighting for Blaine though – _for them_ – is not an option.

Blaine looks down at where their curled knees are almost touching and says, “I am too.”

 

That same thing Kurt feels – to find comfort in the warmth of his body, to trust that touch will communicate so much that they can’t say, or won’t or don’t know how – flares bright and needing around Blaine. Kurt reaches out and smoothes the hair over his ear, even though it doesn’t need it. Slips his hand down Blaine’s arm until he meets his hand, and curls them together. All the air around them seems to sigh, to loosen.

 

“Blaine—” Kurt starts. He pauses, and then says, “I want to be with you. I _am_ with you. There is literally nothing else I want. But I’m scared... I think we both are. And I can’t predict how this is going to go.”

 

With his head down, Kurt can’t read Blaine’s expression. He worries his lip and tries squeezing Blaine’s fingers.

 

“I know you’re scared I’m going to leave you, and I can’t imagine ever leaving you. But I don’t know how... what will—”

 

“I guess I have taken for granted that this is forever for me,” Blaine says so softly. “Maybe it’s not for you.” He thinks of the rings he’d bought. Stupidly young, he’d told himself, paying money he barely had for a matched set of unasked promises.

 

Kurt tries to control the way his lips start to wobble. “I want forever too. I don’t know how to balance that with... I... I looked stuff up. I don’t know that much, I’ve only just started. But they say—” he takes a breath and soldiers on. “They say I need to make things clear, and to not enable you. I just don’t know how to do that and not make you feel scared all the time, that I’m going to leave.”

 

It feels like such an insurmountable impasse, no way to make Blaine feel safe but also to know that Kurt won’t stand by and let him hurt them both, should he go back to old habits, or should things get worse.

 

“I need to ask you to always be honest with me, about if you are or have been drinking. I want to learn to hold you accountable rather than to enable you,” Kurt says. _That I won’t stay if things go back to the way before._ He can’t bring himself to say it. “Not- not that I’d leave when it happens once or something, I know I have to be realistic.”

 

Blaine looks up at him, cheeks red and eyes wide. Kurt trips over himself trying to get it all out.

 

“I want you to tell me when you need support, if you can, and when you think you might be having another problem or are worried it’s going to happen.”

 

“Wow... Kurt,” Blaine says. His eyes turn, unfocused, on the coffee table and he licks his lips.

 

“I don’t know… I don’t know how to do this. But what I do know,” he says, nudging Blaine’s chin. He tries to connect their eyes, feels the contour of cheekbone under his thumb. “Is that I love you. I’m sorry I’ve been holding that in. But I do. No matter what happens, I will always will... even if… even if things don’t… you can’t-” He leaves off there, unwilling to complete that thought.  

 

Blaine’s body seems to draw together with fierce emotion held in, and then his face crumples, and Kurt’s chest tightens. He wraps Blaine against him, feels the wracking emotions vibrate through his shaking body, trying to absorb it with his own. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, over and over. “And I love you.”

 

~*~

 

Things aren’t perfect then, or even close to the way they were before. It’s hard to tell even, if they’re better.

 

Blaine sees Kim, starts taking something for anxiety. He finds that without that, and with immersion in new activities -- some with Kurt -- it’s not hard to replace old friends with new. Sometimes, he misses things – the parties and the people, they weren’t always about pain or oblivion, they’d been about a different kind of fun.

 

Kurt’s words had been hard to digest, partly because they were hard to understand in a concrete way – what would he have to do for Kurt to leave him? What’s acceptable? He worries about trying to be perfect for Kurt, although Kim assures him over and over that that isn’t healthy for either of them.

 

They make love, sometimes, in the months after. It’s comforting, because physical intimacy isn’t anything either of them had taken lightly. He feels the closet sometimes then, when they’re both naked and gasping together, wrecked and too loose to hold much but love back. But Blaine never initiates those touches. He’s tried; unexpected, a touch seemed to startle Kurt. As though he might never know what was motivating it.

 

Blaine figures it’s trust, just a little left, that’s been lost for them both. Because he’d hurt Kurt, and that takes time to heal. Because Blaine’s never sure when they’ll both be ready to move past his mistakes. Because Kurt had promised to help him. Had told Blaine he loved him for the first time since he’d left – one of a handful of times he’s given Blaine the words. But more clearly, it seemed like he’d said, _I don’t think you can do this._

It is hard, but they’re both together. They’re both fighting, and there is hope, for them, he thinks.

 

~*~

 

“Good luck,” Santana warns as she opens the door then breezes past him.

 

“What?” Blaine turns to watch her go, but gets no answer. “Kurt?” He calls out. There’s no answer but he finds Kurt on the couch with his feet propped up and a pillow over his face. “Hey, honey?”

 

Kurt pulls the pillow away. “Hey.”

 

“What’s going on?” Blaine says, bending awkwardly – Kurt is taking up the whole couch. He runs his hand tentatively down Kurt’s arm. He looks awful, pale and stressed.

 

“Bad day,” Kurt explains. He moves to sit up. “And I have a headache.”

 

“No hey, lay back down.” He wants to kiss Kurt’s temple, but resists. “Want some tea?”

 

Kurt’s smile is small but thankful. “That would be lovely, you don’t mind?”

 

“Of course not,” Blaine assures. He  leaves Kurt curled on his side, hugging a throw pillow, after pulling a light blanket over him. In the kitchen, he busies himself with making lavender tea that he knows Kurt drinks for soothing. He searches out the stash of cookies Kurt likes to think no one knows about and adds two to the saucer with the mug.

 

“Here you go.” The mug clinks when Blaine sets it down, sliding a little to the right. A bit of tea sloshes over the side and he quickly rescues the cookies from getting soaked and soggy. “Oops.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

Kurt does sit up now, though he doesn’t touch the tea which is still too hot, wisps of steam curling upward. Blaine can see the pull of a headache in the tension around his eyes and the set of his shoulders.

 

 

“Sit,” Kurt says, patting the sofa. Blaine does carefully, keeping some space between them.

 

“Could I…” he clears his throat, asks cautiously. “Maybe I could rub your shoulders?”

 

Kurt turns to look at him, surprised. He bites his lip before speaking, “Blaine—”

 

“Just to see if it helps with your headache,” Blaine rushes to get out, not wanting Kurt to get the wrong idea. He’s still so careful with how he touches Kurt – of initiating touch – still feels the fragility of the tenuous connection between them. Kurt probably doesn’t want his touch, not without pulling himself together or preparing in advance. Blaine wonders if he’s just not ready to be vulnerable, not without bracing himself. Right now, he’s obviously having a bad day, and Blaine doesn’t want to provoke or upset him in anyway.

 

“Of course,” Kurt says. He starts to laugh only it trails into silence when something moves over his face; something strong and sudden and Blaine can’t say what it is, only that it’s big. Blaine catches a shine in his eyes, at least he thinks he does. _What’s that about?_

 

~*~

 

He doesn’t say anything at first, just struggles to breathe evenly when Blaine’s hands slide over his shoulders tentatively. Kurt bites his lip harder and feels his heart starting to beat a little harder. He’s holding his breath trying to put what he’s just seen in a way that makes some sort of sense.

 

Kurt knows that taking Blaine back, that committing to working with him was just the first step. But this – Blaine’s posture and hesitation, the wide uncertainty in his eyes – speak so much louder than any words of forgiveness or charity or promise uttered.

 

Because Blaine is afraid. Maybe of being hurt, maybe of being rebuffed. Maybe it’s not fear crystallized, but something more amorphous. He’s working so hard in therapy to learn to unmask his vulnerabilities, his uncertainties and the things that have hurt him in the past.  

 

Kurt holds himself still. One tear, and then more, trails slow and warm over his cheeks, leaving behind tracks that cool in the chill of his apartment. He’d taken Blaine back with hesitation only because he was scared that it might hurt them both in some way. The conditions he’d put on everything had been meant to protect himself.

 

What has he said, since he took Blaine back? There must be something he’s done to make Blaine like this -- so tentative to touch him, to approach him in this mood.

 

“ _Not… not that I’d leave when it happens once or something, I know I have to be realistic.”_

 

And what he remembers, in the end, is that conversation. The words he used now, that they’ve been built on the idea that Blaine is going to hurt him again.

 

The truth is that he might. But, then again, Kurt might just as easily hurt Blaine in any number of ways. Life works like that, he knows too well. Life doesn’t promise not to hurt, because it’s not an entity that can be bargained with, it’s not something to control or trust, or really anything knowable. It’s something that with strength and determination, can be lived. How it’s lived is the only thing he’s ever known he has any measure of control over.

 

Kurt wants a life fulfilled, which means many shades of living and colors of choice. The brightest right now, the richest, is loving Blaine. Letting Blaine love him. Blaine’s thumbs circle firmly at the base of his neck, then whisper down the slope of his shoulders until they land between his shoulder blades. Blaine loves him. He holds that close to his heart, lets it beat just as warm and so bright inside. He’s not choosing to love Blaine back; he doesn’t think loving Blaine was ever something he could _not_ do. It’s just something that was always there, tucked tight and safe inside until the moment it unfurled; maybe the first glance, or the time Blaine took his hand, carefully. The day they made love in a haze of winter sunlight.

 

“Blaine,” Kurt whispers. Blaine curls one hand over his shoulder and Kurt takes it, tugging him close. He wraps it around his collarbone, tilts just enough to press his damp cheek against Blaine’s. “I love you.”  

 

 

Blaine breathes sharply against his back. He says it without conditions, unsure of how many times he’s done that subconsciously in these months. Put limits on the love he’ll give Blaine. Scared, stupidly scared all the time.  

 

“I love you too,” Blaine replies. His voice breaks and his fingers grip Kurt’s hand. His other arm winds around Kurt’s waist; he keeps his eyes closed and lets the warmth of Blaine’s cheek heat his own.

 

He breathes, smells the salt of his tears and the faint fruit of Blaine’s hair gel.

 

“Kurt—” Blaine asks softly, and Kurt can hear the fear and uncertainty/ “Kurt, do you believe in me?”  

 

“Oh…” Kurt turns then, turns and holds Blaine close, forehead to forehead, hands cupped behind his skull and eyes fiercely connected. “I do.”

 

Blaine closes his eyes around a sob and Kurt kisses his cheeks and lips and holds him as close and tight as he can. He turns his face into Blaine’s shoulder and feels them shake apart together.

 

“Blaine I believe in you. And I believe in us.”

 


End file.
